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Sunday, March 6, 2011

French Fridays with Dorie: Savory Cheese and Chive Bread

Baked melty cheeses. Fresh oniony chives. Baked into a savory bread (or mini muffin in my case) sounds like pure deliciousness. That's why I was excited to bake this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe for Savory Cheese and Chive Bread. When it comes to bread I love bread that has a crispy, chewy outside and my Hubby likes the soft pillowy inside. So when I made this bread, I knew mini muffins would be perfect for me. I could maximize the chewy, crispy cheesy exterior with each little muffin. Check it out!

How do these mini muffins rate on the deliciousness meter? They get high marks across the board. This would be the perfect accompaniment to a chili or a soup. This is no cakey "muffin". It's a hearty bread. I used 3 types of cheese, grated gruyere, small cubes of sharp cheddar and grated parmesan. For extra flavor I used basil flavored olive oil. And they get a nice little kick from white pepper. These savory treats will definitely make a repeat appearance at our house. Next time I plan to add pancetta or finely diced bacon. That would make these just about perfect. My mouth is watering just thinking about how they will taste with salty yummy bacon! Mmmmm.

The dough is simple. There is no yeast in this bread. It's a quick bread. Which really means dry ingredients (flour, salt, white pepper and baking powder) are mixed together (gently) with the wet ingredients (eggs, milk and olive oil) and then you stir in the mix ins (cheese and chives). Easy.

I halved the recipe and ended up with 14 mini's.

My Hubby, who doesn't really like cheese, or crispy bread, ate 4 right off the bat. Either he was starving or he really liked them. Hard to tell. I baked them for about 19 minutes. The truth is the interior of the muffin was done at 15 minutes but I left them in a few minutes longer to get more browning on top.

Next time I will take them out at 15 because they were just a touch on the dry side. Though these aren't intended to be "moist", they would have benefited if they came out of the oven a few minutes earlier.

To see how other French Friday's with Dorie bakers did click here. The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's book, Around My French Table.

I love how you made these into minis! They look so delicious that it's no wonder your husband ate four of them. I did the loaf but used pine nuts instead of walnuts, hot chili olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes.

Oh yes! Muffins are always a good choice. They are portable and store-able. Easy to share too. Here is my link as wordpress won't let me leave it on FFwD http://naturally-delicious.blogspot.com/2011/03/savory-cheese-and-chive-bread.html